In the last two years of World War II, Pvt. Miller and Pvt. Petrenko, two allied soliders, will fight to end WWII. In famous battlefields from Pelelieu to Seelow Heights, Call of Duty World at War delivers brutal action, intense sieges, desperate stands, and memorable characters. Using any weapons at your disposal, from Thompson SMGs, to Flamethrowers, to T34 tanks, fight back the evil of the Fascist Reich and the Japanese Empire in the fifth installment in the Call of Duty Franchise.
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Shoot an enemy's head clean off in this game and they'll still let out a scream, despite very obviously no longer having the equipment to do so. A weird little audio bug that nobody at Treyarch seems to have caught before shipping.
Get caught out in the rain or wade through water and you'll sometimes see little droplets appear on the screen, as if your character was wearing glasses rather than, you know, having eyes exposed to the elements like a normal soldier.
Hang around too long without progressing an objective and the game starts lobbing grenades at you constantly - it's especially brutal on Veteran difficulty and is basically Treyarch's way of telling you to stop hiding behind that crate and push forward.
A whole British campaign was planned for World at War at one point, and you can still find unused weapons like the Sten, Bren and Lee-Enfield sitting dormant in the game files. There were even three cut missions set in Holland that survived into the Mod Tools. Would've been a very different game.
In the opening mission you run into a soldier named Pvt. Pyle - a direct wink at the character from Full Metal Jacket, right down to sharing the 'Gomer Pyle' nickname. Subtle enough that plenty of players never clock it.
Partway through the first level you're tasked with saving a Pvt. Ryan, which is about as unsubtle a Saving Private Ryan reference as you can get. World War II shooters just can't resist bringing him up.
As of when it launched, World at War was the only mainline Call of Duty to not feature British forces at all, focusing purely on the US and Soviet fronts instead. They did sneak back in on the PS2/Wii spin-off Final Fronts though, where they actually replaced the Russians entirely.
Despite having some of the most graphic violence and by far the most swearing of any Call of Duty game up to that point, World at War somehow got away with a BBFC 15 rating in the UK, while most other entries in the series landed a PEGI 18.
Sgt. Reznov is voiced by Gary Oldman and Sgt. Roebuck by Kiefer Sutherland - a proper stacked cast for a 2008 shooter. Reznov went on to become one of the most memorable characters in the whole Call of Duty series thanks largely to Oldman's performance.
Scattered across the campaign are 13 collectible Death Cards, usually tucked near fallen soldiers or fixed to makeshift graves. Find one and it unlocks a co-op cheat, like paintball bullets or enemies that never drop weapons - track down all of them and there's an achievement waiting for you too.
